"The nineties were wild, man, I don't know what to tell you."

"I still don't think—"

"Oliver, if you're about to tell a gay Korean teenager about what's right or wrong when it comes to homophobic parents who tried to kill you, don't. He knew they were going to become ghosts anyway."

Jake will keep pushing, he guesses, because he still thinks Jeremy will tire quicker.

He can come in now.

Senses blackout again, though.

"—oh he let you in."

"Motherfucker! I can't hear you or see you or anything else, he's blacking out my senses. —he can only do this shit to me, not anyone else, because our souls are kinda connected. Long story. Sorry, if you're saying anything I literally can't hear you. What I might ask you to do though is carry me to a spot near the tree house, I'll—probably know when I'm near it—but not yet, I need to wait until my PA gets me the shovel I asked him for. Might take like five minutes. Actually let's just wait for him outside, assuming Jeremy will still let me leave—" Can he see the sidewalk?

When facing it pretty directly.  Like to within five degrees of perpendicular to the property line.

Okay! He will walk out!

Soon followed by Oliver.

"Um, Jake, I kinda want an actual explanation now?"

"...sure, fine. Ghosts are real, magic's real, Jeremy's a magic ghost, like a ghost who can do magic. When he killed his parents he got extra magic oomph from their deaths which means he's a special kind of ghost who can do extra good magic. I didn't ask much about that.

"Anyway so the other day when I came here on that dare, you saw the video, right?"

"Yeah."

"He killed me, and then used a spell to bring me back to life, and that spell took out a lot of his energy and he'll be super low energy for a long time, but now that means our souls are connected—"

"He killed you?"

"—yeah, that bit where I fell while climbing down the tree house wasn't accidental, he made me slip, and then he drowned me. He was pretty sure he'd be able to bring me back, though! And if he couldn't at least if I drowned I would look pretty as a ghost. Because ghosts look the way they did when they died. He's got a bruise on his neck from where he broke it when he died."

"That's not what I was asking about."

"I'm getting there. He killed me because by connecting our souls it made it possible for me to just be able to see him and interact with him. You won't be able to see him. But it also means he can do shit like teekay me or control my senses, but only while I'm inside the house where he died. Or, like, the property lines, I'm not sure how that works exactly either."

"And he did that for what? Just 'cause he was lonely or?"

"No, he did that because there was a horrible spell that could be used to permanently prevent ghosts from forming in an area, and it was apparently a super simple spell that could be used one time to, like, kill every ghost on a continent all at once, if anyone ever cast that spell it would be a more horrible atrocity than an atomic bomb, and he needed a human's help to erase that spell from existence so that no one would ever be able to cast it ever."

"...okay..."

"—you don't believe me."

"Jake, um, I mean, it's just..."

"...I guess I did have several days to get used to the idea. And, like, died. And all you saw was the weird TK wall which could be just me being really good at miming or something."

"...yeah."

"Well, whatever, you don't need to believe me. Exactly. Like, it's just, I need your help, because this asshole's trying to keep me out for no reason even though I own this Goddamn house."